An empirical study of user’s motivation on ride hailing services in an emerging market

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School of Business | Master's thesis

Date

2021

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Marketing

Language

en

Pages

23 + 6

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Abstract

The theory of the sharing economy has been a controversial, ever changing topic and is continuously discussed across academic research fields. In practice, the sharing economy has been integrated in various parts of our life, from short term accommodation, peer-to-peer professional services, to its most dominant sector: mobility. Ride hailing, in particular, is the oldest and most prevailing form of shared mobility, emerging from developed, matured markets such as the U.S, to the fast growing region of SouthEast Asia. In this paper, we will not only explore the motivations of ride hailing users in an emerging market context of VietNam using interview techniques and means-end chain analysis, but also further assess their association strength through hierarchical value maps. Through literature review, we draw up an interview sample of ride hailing main user groups: educated, working professionals living in urban areas. The findings of the paper show that, in contrast to common belief on sharing economy where sustainability is the key motivating factor for users and a dominant theme companies often take advantage of, ride hailing users in VietNam are not aware of any environmental benefit that the service might bring, neither are they motivated by it. They are rather more concerned with other values such as economic benefit, safety, and convenience. This is in line with recent researches indicating that sustainability might create a positive attitude towards the service but extrinsic values are what motivate and retain users. Cultural difference and context specifics might also be at play here. The study further confirms the ongoing discussion on ride hailing in a less discussed context, all the while contributing significant managerial implications for ride hailing companies when deciding their users retaining strategy as well as improving users’ attitude towards their brands.

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Thesis advisor

Weijo, Henri

Keywords

sharing economy, shared mobility, ride hailing, user's motivation

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